Marie Kondo Clutter-free Conference Room
Simplified Storytime Rooms
Bookless Shelves
Thank you Marie Kondo for showing us the way! We’ve reduced our collection to a single book per branch. We’ve also made a number of other exciting changes!
“To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.”
~Marie Kondo
We want to provide access to ideas, information, experiences and materials that support and enrich people's lives. Does that have to involve books?! That creates one major problem: clutter!
County Librarian Tricia Suellentrop explains, “We have nice shelves—excellent shelves! Johnson County Library has lovely, lovely, shelves—but you can’t see them! It’s those pesky books!!! Shelves cluttered with books? Not on my watch!”
After a four-year special Library investigational think-tank looked into the problem and weighed possible solutions, we reached this conclusion: the books have to go! We can't let go of books entirely though. We will still allow one book per Library branch. We think you will appreciate the minimalism!
Bookless shelves inspired a number of other changes within our branches. Check out how we’ve decluttered to create more minimalistic spaces. We have:
• Removed all furniture (Chairs are the worst, right? And tables serve no purpose that we can think of.)
• Discarded all A/V from Meeting and Conference Rooms! (Who even knows how that stuff works?!)
• Withdrew computers (Those cords!!! Yuck!)
• Shed everything from our 6 by 6 and Storytime areas
• Ditched our Catalog kiosks (Well, there is just one book per branch.)
• Eliminated our art exhibitions
Suellentrop puts it best, “People come to Libraries for one thing and one thing only: Librarian humor. We have some funny folks! There’s really no reason to provide anything else."
We really want to hear from you! What do you think of our new direction?